English rock band Muse are one often put forward as one of the greatest “modern” rock bands – and deservingly so. It’s a testament to the consistent quality of their work, as well as to their defiant sense of artistic identity, that they maintain that same degree of contemporary esteem to this day. Their distinct sound (characterized by Matthew Bellamy’s immediately recognizable vocal stylings and wily guitar work, as well as by the steadfast rhythmic thunder of bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard) has been a through-line from the larger-than-life hard rock of albums like Black Holes and Revelations and The Resistance to synthy, EDM-touched offerings like The 2nd Law or the more recent Simulation Theory. The band’s latest track, “Unraveling,” feels like both a culmination and an evolution of all these past iterations of Muse, merging the synthwave ventures of their later years with the guitar-driven heaviness of their earlier repertoire.
“Unraveling” begins with a darkly atmospheric electronic cadence of arpeggiated synthesizers and subdued drum samples, with Bellamy’s signature vibrato-laden tenor introduced shortly thereafter. It’s a setup that strongly recalls the epicurean synthwave excess of Simulation Theory, except here being more refined and focused. We’re given just long enough to embrace this tantalizingly menacing atmosphere before a refrain on the song’s titular “Unraveling” signals the band to do just that. The digital overture cascades into a dense metal breakdown that one might be tempted to say sounds like Muse of old (and it does), but that would miss the fact that the heavier turns of “Unraveling” are among the most intense that the band has ever attempted. The growling, chainsaw-like guitar riffing and cataclysmic rhythm section heard here sound as similar to djent or prog metal as they do to something like “Supermassive Black Hole” or “Dead Star.” A massive, delightfully bombastic chorus merges the two aesthetics into a towering, nigh-operatic synthesis as Bellamy mourns decaying love. The pattern repeats, with electronica again taking center stage before being torn apart by an even more mercilessly heavy interlude, here only briefly subsiding for one final chorus before again devolving into thickly metallic sludge.
The lyric video released with “Unraveling” mirrors the stylistic amalgamation of it’s parent track, with artifacting CG images like those the band often employed alongside their more synthetic projects interspersed with live footage of Muse in a space where their heavier material has always thrived – live performance. It’s a fittingly holistic pairing for a song that not only encapsulates the band’s various musical modes, but advances them into daringly extreme new territory.